Lady Lyte's Little Secret

by Deborah Hale

  Her question roused Thorn from his lethargy. “Of course it was different! Rosemary didn’t give a fig about Merritt’s fortune.”

  “Whereas you cared a great deal about having a family.” The plaintive note in Felicity’s voice told him she was near tears. “Yet you were still willing to marry me, even though you thought I could not give you children. You cannot imagine what that meant to me, who have never been loved on my own account.”

  Amid the shifting quagmire of truth and falsehood where he now wallowed, Thorn could feel something solid beneath him for the first time. But was it large enough to build on?

  “You were the one who said we must weigh each thing that stands between us against the prospect of a future apart. I know this all must weigh very heavily against me, Thorn. Too heavily.”

  She seemed to shrink before his tired eyes, and her voice sounded bereft, yet curiously resigned. “Somehow you found a way to forgive me for the way I behaved this morning. I know you well enough to be certain you cannot forgive me this. I only wanted you to hear my side. You have been more than patient in that. I will not detain you any longer.”

  Just then a very old memory roused in Thorn’s mind while all the others were falling asleep. A quote from back in his school days. Pythagoras, was it? Or Archimedes? Give me a solid place to stand and I can move the world.

  Other words came to him, as well. Words he had first heard long ago, and which his sister had echoed today. Love is a powerful force, if only we can find the courage to use it.

  It took courage for a man of reason to say, “I was wrong.”

  “What?”

  Thorn wanted to ask himself the same question.

  From some strange newborn place inside him came an answer that surprised him at least as much as it seemed to surprise Felicity.

  “I was wrong to talk of weighing love like so many cabbages in the market. It’s not like a bank balance, either, with deposits, withdrawals and interest charged for an overdraft.”

  He didn’t remember getting to his feet, but all of a sudden Thorn found himself standing. Which way his feet would carry him, he hardly knew.

  “What is it then?” asked Felicity in a murmur that sounded hopeful, yet frightened.

  “Love is an all-or-nothing wager,” Thorn heard himself say as he took a step toward the bed.

  “For more than you can afford to lose.” He took another step. “Against very long odds.”

  If his father had risked telling Thorn the true state of their affairs, they might have worked together to recover his losses. Instead Royce Greenwood had taken his secret shame to his grave. Had he been too proud to reveal his folly to his children? Or had he feared they would never forgive him?

  Thorn heard a rustle of bedclothes.

  “That doesn’t sound like something a sensible man would do,” whispered Felicity from only a few inches away.

  Thorn shrugged. “It isn’t.”

  “After everything that’s happened, are you reckless enough to gamble your happiness on a risky proposition like me?”

  Felicity sounded so forlorn and vulnerable, nothing like the clever, confident lady of fortune who’d recruited him to become her lover. Now Thorn understood her show of assurance had been a brittle facade. In the rich soil of his love, true confidence would take root and flourish, proof against the insecurity that had led her to test him again and again.

  He held his arms open to her. “I believe the winnings will be worth the risk…for us both and for our child.”

  “You are a hundred times too good for me.” Felicity drifted into his embrace. “But I will strive with all my heart to make you happy.”

  Thorn inclined his head by gentle degrees until his brow rested against hers. “Allow yourself to be happy, my love, and you cannot fail to bring me happiness.”

  She lifted her lips to his like a parched flower to the warm, gentle rain, and deep in his heart Thorn knew it would be so.

  Epilogue

  Lathbury, England

  February 1816

  “I vow, I never saw a sweeter-tempered baby.” Ivy Armitage nuzzled the downy cheek of her infant niece and namesake, Ivy Olivia Greenwood. “Not a peep out of her at the christening. Not even when the vicar dribbled that cold baptismal water on her dear little pate.”

  As a soft, gentle fall of snow blanketed the Buckinghamshire countryside, a merry blaze crackled in the sitting room hearth at Barnhill, where all the Greenwood family had gathered for Miss Olivia’s christening breakfast.

  “Do you hear that, Master Hawthorn?” Rosemary Temple demanded of her sturdy little son as she bounced him in her arms. “Your Aunt Ivy means to remind everyone that you wailed loud enough at your christening to make all our ears ring for hours afterward.”

  The child blinked his enormous blue eyes and chortled at the droll face his mama had made.

  Merritt Temple paused in the story he was reading to his elder son. “Don’t laugh, you young rascal. The vicar’s nerves haven’t been the same since.”

  From his post at the sideboard, where he was ladling hot punch into cups, Thorn Greenwood called, “The prospect of a tribe of lusty young Armitages at the baptismal font will likely drive the poor man into retirement.”

  “Indeed,” said Merritt, casting a searching look from Oliver to Ivy and back again. “Is there some chance of that happening in the near future?”

  Oliver made no reply, except to stare at the floor and blush.

  “Aha!” Thorn and Merritt cried in perfect chorus.

  “Congratulations!” Rosemary stooped to kiss her sister’s cheek. “When may we expect the new arrival?”

  “Thorn!” wailed Ivy, “I was saving the news for a surprise announcement at breakfast.”

  “Did somebody mention breakfast?” Felicity Greenwood breezed into the sitting room. “You must all be famished for it.”

  Though Ivy had seen her sister-in-law often during the summer and autumn, she continued to be surprised by the alteration that marriage to Thorn had wrought in Felicity. Everything about her seemed to have softened and ripened. The special radiance of motherhood had further enriched her dark, delicate beauty.

  “I’ve come to tell you everything’s ready, at last.” Felicity beckoned them all. “Let’s eat while it’s piping hot. And what’s this I hear about an announcement? You haven’t told them already, have you Thorn?”

  “No, my dear.” Thorn handed his wife a cup of punch and passed another to Oliver. “I just happened to divine that the Armitages have a happy event in the offing. Now Ivy’s vexed at me for guessing. Will you be vexed at her and your nephew for making a woman of your tender years a great-aunt?”

  “Indeed not.” Felicity caught Oliver’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Especially if they are kind enough to furnish Olivia with a little girl cousin for a playmate. I’d hate to see her too badly outnumbered by the boys.”

  “Don’t try to divert us, you two.” Merritt Temple hoisted three-year-old Harry onto his shoulders. “What’s this news you haven’t told us, Thorn? People are letting cats out of bags left and right this morning.”

  Master Harry wiggled around, peering all over the room. “I don’t see any cats, Papa!”

  Thorn laughed as Merritt tried to explain the queer figure of speech to his son. “Never fear. You shall hear my news soon enough. Let’s go tuck into that breakfast before it gets cold.”

  As if on cue, a trio of maidservants appeared to bear the younger guests off to Barnhill’s newly refurbished nursery. Meanwhile their parents, aunts and uncles repaired to the dining room for a feast of good things, all seasoned with laughter and congenial talk.

  “Kippers, Oliver?” asked Merritt as he helped himself to a generous portion. “They say fish is good for the brain. How’s your research progressing, by the by? Made any great discoveries?”

  Oliver held out his plate. “No great ones, but a number of small ones that each build on the others, which is very gratifying. I’m working out some spec
ialized factory applications for the steam engine, which will save many hours of human labor and pay me quite handsomely to boot.”

  Beneath the table Ivy nudged her husband’s foot. When he glanced across at her, she darted a sly smile his way. “Oliver has been intrigued by the workings of steam engines ever since we ran off to Gretna.”

  It was still one of their favorite private jokes from their wedding night—how Oliver had likened the act of lovemaking to a piston and cylinder!

  Her husband cleared his throat and adjusted his spectacles. Though he managed to keep a sober face and continue his conversation with Merritt, Ivy sensed that he was struggling to hold back a sheepish grin. He shot her a look that told her she would pay for her impudence in some very pleasant manner, as soon as they were alone.

  Glancing to her left, Ivy saw Felicity and Rosemary with their heads together like two lovely mirror images, one dark and one golden. From what little she could pick up of their whispered discussion, it appeared to be all about babies.

  Ivy had never had much patience for the subject before, but lately her feelings had begun to change. She suspected they would undergo a complete reversal the first time she held her own little one in her arms.

  At last, Ivy’s gaze wandered to the head of the table, where she found her brother watching his family with quiet pride and satisfaction. An echo of those emotions stirred in her own heart. Three of the happiest married couples in the whole kingdom sat around this very table, and she’d had a hand in bringing each of them together.

  When the serving platters were almost empty and conversation had begun to ebb, Rosemary spoke up, “Don’t keep us in suspense any longer, Thorn. What’s this news you planned to tell us?”

  Thorn rose from his chair. “Nothing as momentous as Oliver and Ivy’s, but I’m keen to share it with my family just the same. I thought you might like to know that I have finally succeeded in clearing all of Father’s debts and have begun to accumulate capital in my own right.”

  The Temples and the Armitages cheered this news. Though her brother had made light of their situation to her and Rosemary, Ivy knew it had weighed on him.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Thorn acknowledged their applause and congratulations. “Everyone else of my acquaintance probably believes I owe this renewed prosperity to my wife’s fortune.”

  Felicity shook her head. No one seeing the gaze of transparent admiration she directed at her husband could doubt that Thorn had succeeded entirely by his own efforts.

  “In truth,” said Thorn, “I owe far more to my wife’s confidence in my abilities than to her property. As long as we here know the rights of it, the rest of the world may think what it pleases.”

  As Thorn took his seat again, Merritt Temple stood up. “I believe this calls for a toast. To my dear friend and brother, who has persevered and triumphed in his business affairs. That achievement is eclipsed only by his brilliant success in raising two dear, delightful sisters.”

  “To Thorn!” They all drank to his accomplishments with a warm will.

  “I hope you have not drained your cups,” said Felicity, rising from her place opposite her husband, “for I have a toast to make, as well. Let us drink to Ivy and Oliver’s wonderful news. May they be as happy in their new family as Thorn and I have been, thanks to their efforts.”

  Everyone drank to the Armitages’ happiness as eagerly as they had saluted Thorn’s newfound prosperity.

  Ivy blinked back tears of joyous fulfillment even as she quipped, “With three happy marriages to my credit, you will all be relieved to hear that I plan to retire from matchmaking so as not to risk tarnishing my perfect record.”

  As her family chuckled and drained their punch cups a final thought occurred to Ivy.

  “At least until the next generation of Greenwoods are grown and need a little help from Auntie Cupid!”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6039-2

  LADY LYTE’S LITTLE SECRET

  Copyright © 2003 by Deborah M. Hale

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